I just got a call from Kirsten, who had taken Cayce to the vet this morning for an ear infection.

It turns out Cayce is allergic to both corn and rice, the two main components of dog foods everywhere (including all the "Allergic" blends). According to our vet (Edmonton Holistic Veterinary Clinic - yes, you read that right, our vet is basically a pet naturopath), Cayce has the classic symptoms of a rice/corn allergy: she licks her paws almost obsessively, and gets ear infections at 2 month intervals.

It turns out that in humans, rice is a completely hypoallergenic food, suitable for anyone with any sort of allergy to eat. It was assumed that this was the same for dogs, but it turns out that this is not the case.

So, we're going to have to get her a special dog food, made by a company called Natura, which has no grains in it. And we're going to have to be careful when we're giving her scraps that there's no corn or rice in them.